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The dark joke here is just how easily Uncle Charlie fits into the gentle Santa Rosa domicile. While the Newton family isn't "the Addams Family," they're not exactly the Cleavers (er, bad choice of name) either. Pa and his creepy neighbor (Hitchcock's friend Hume Cronyn) have a hobby of dissecting mystery novels and trying to improve the ways of knocking people off. They're all a bit gossipy, but that's small town for you.
There's tension around the table, too. There's a bond between the two Charlie's—she knew, almost telepathically, that Uncle Charles was coming before the news came out, her restlessness and sense for excitement is a perverse reflection of his vicious vagabond ways. Then there's that "ear-worm," the song that keeps popping into her head, and in this scene shows up in her mother's.* And that's not the only Newton female affected; little book-worm-ish Ann has developed a fear of Uncle Charlie that she can't explain. For the men, there's little Roger's defiant defense of himself that Mom cows and Uncle Charlie is suspicious of. And poor Joe; displaced from the head of the table by Charlie, the conversation is dominated by his wife and brother-in-law to which he can only interject pleasantries and look sheepish at jokes between them he doesn't understand.
Hitchcock keeps the camera moving, picking up reaction shots while conversation goes on—the controlled chaos of the family dinner table. No shot is held for too long. Not until "The Speech."*** Then Hitchcock changes the direction the camera is looking to show Uncle Charlie's "other" side; it's a shot from Charlie's point-of-view at the table, which creeps closer and closer as Charles' words grow darker and more malevolent—she knows his true identity now and is fighting against it, and we're seeing, through her eyes, the monster that lies beneath the surface. And when she protests Charles' misogynistic rant, she is speaking from the audience's perspective, echoing their own sentiments, only to be rebuffed by Hitchcock's extreme close-up of his face, coldly cutting us down.
We've just been chilled to the bone, but what sort of reaction do Charles' words have around the table when the scene continues? Next to none. Charles' sister prattles on as if nothing happened: "Well, you'd better not talk like that at the meeting..." Everyone else eats. A wolf is sitting at their table and no one recognizes it except the one character to whom we are attached. That may actually be more chilling than the sequence itself. We know. We're alone.
It's one of the most scary moments in all of Hitchcock's films.
The Set-Up: Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) is "bored, bored, bored," with her life in Santa Rosa, California, and wants some excitement. Be careful what you wish for. Her mother's brother, Uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten), is coming for a visit from the East Coast. Shadowing him are a pair of FBI agents (Macdonald Carey, Wallace Ford) who suspect Oakley of being "The Merry Widow Killer," who's been murdering rich widows for their inheritance. There've been some vaguely troubling things happening since Uncle Charlie came to town (why is he obsessively reading the local paper?), and it isn't long before the agents tell young Charlie their suspicions. A trip to the Library confirms them, and she spends the day in her room, "sleeping" and avoiding her Uncle. A big dinner is planned, and Charlie conspires to spend as little time with him as possible, her relationship with him shadowed by her suspicions.
Action!
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Emmy: How do you feel, darling?
Charlie: Fine. I must have been tired or something. I slept like a log.
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Charlie: I'm rested now and ready for anything. Is the gravy made?
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Emmy: Alright, if you say so, but at least I can carry in the soup.
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Ann: Mama -
Emmy: What is it? Ann, I told you not to put things behind your ears. And don't pull at me. And don't whisper. When you whisper, anyone could hear you a block away.
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Emmy: By me? Why, I should think you'd want to sit by your Uncle Charlie.
Ann: No, I want to sit by you.
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Charlie: Mother, let her change if she wants to.
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Charlie: Go on, go in the dining room, both of you.
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Uncle Charlie: Never what, Roger?
Roger: Nothing.
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Joe: I brought it in by mistake. Had it in my hands, I guess. Nothing special in it.
- Want to look at the headlines, Charles?
Uncle Charlie: Thank you, Joe.
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Ann: If he holds his lips close together, he could draw it carefully, like a horse.
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Roger: Mom, May I dip my bread in it?
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Emmy: She wanted to serve dinner. - She'll be in in a minute.
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Emmy: Well, Charlie, how could you feel happy seeing Uncle Charles on a train?
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Charlie: Well, he has to leave sometime. I mean we all have to realize he has to leave sometime. We have to face the facts.
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Ann: I'm too old for funnies. I read two books a week. I took a sacred oath I would. Besides, in this family, no one's allowed to read at the table. It isn't polite.
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Emmy: Wine for dinner sounds so gay!
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(Cork Popping)
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Uncle Charlie: Women keep busy in...
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Shadow of a Doubt
Words by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson and Alma Reville**
Pictures by Joseph A. Valentine and Alfred Hitchcock
Shadow of a Doubt is available on DVD from Universal Home Video.
* It's "The Merry Widow" Waltz. Uncle Charlie has been dubbed "The Merry Widow" Killer by the authorities. It's like this family has "The Shining."
**Alma Reville was Hitchcock's co-scenarist, co-plotter, co-editor, co-conspirator and beloved wife. Sally Benson wrote the book of Meet Me in St. Louis, as well as the screenplay for...wait for it...Viva Las Vegas.
*** Here's a compilation of "The Speech"—Cotten's version mixed in with radio adaptations featuring William Powell and Cary Grant (as well, it seems to me Mark Harmon, and, it sounds like, Paul Douglas .
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